‘It has made me live life more’: Jessica Cornish on her health battle, career returns and conquering the Chinese market

You wouldn’t believe it, the singer remarks. At that moment preparing for her first album release in eight years, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in March she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.

The artist, actual name J. Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The LP, her latest release, was intended as an candid account, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, losing a baby, failed relationships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The lead track, No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Then next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while still secretly dealing with breast cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in July she had a mastectomy.

She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.

We’re at a photo studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and big frames. Think rocker vibe meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, referencing the movie. “They used to call me that!” She beams. She is fast-thinking, irreverent and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her initial standup show soon. “I like entertaining. During performances I basically roast the crowd.”

Health Struggles and Diagnosis

The artist was getting ready for an performance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an scan, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was serious she’d contact on the Monday. By then she had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had so much on.

“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”

Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am

She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but now I just walked with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal a few months back and my one side now resembles a odd shape.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”

The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”

A History of Health Challenges

The singer is familiar with health problems. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s used to health crises. They have often coincided with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”

She recalls to her childhood, already making her debut performing in the stage in a musical (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and teenage Jess has joined the trio the group while enrolled in the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”

Oi, I say, slow down, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees